Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi
by Bernice Erehart
Summary: Dr.s Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter come home and meet their new neighbor. Penny is a pretty blonde girl who is more than they expected.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi

Dr.s Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter are returning from an errand. Leonard is carrying a brown bag, Sheldon has his brief case slung over his shoulder. As they pass the elevator on the Third floor and head up the stairs to the fourth floor, Sheldon speaks.

"You want to hear an interesting thing about stairs?" Sheldon asks Leonard.

"No, not really," Leonard replies uninterested.

"If the height of a single step is off by just two millimeters most people will slip," Sheldon informed Leonard.

"I don't care," Leonard says but then gives it another thought, "two millimeters? That doesn't seem right"

"No it's true, I did a series of experiments when I was twelve, my father broke his clavicle," Sheldon confirmed.

"Is that why they sent you to boarding school?" Leonard asked.

"No, that was the result of my work with lasers," Sheldon verified.

As they stepped onto the landing of the fourth floor Sheldon digs in his pocket for the key to their door, Leonard notices the door across the hall is open and a pretty blonde girl looks to be sorting DVD cases. He notices a framed movie poster of Halle Berry as Catwoman.

"New neighbor?" Leonard asked.

"Appears so." Sheldon answered.

"An improvement over the old neighbor."

"A two hundred pound transvestite with a skin condition? Yes, she is," Sheldon agreed.

They walk toward her apartment and she looked up and smiled.

"Oh, hi," she says.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi," she says again.

"We don't mean to interrupt," Leonard say as they get closer to her door. "We live across the hall." He gestures towards his and Sheldon's door.

"Oh, that's nice," she says wrinkling her nose.

"Oh, we don't _live_ together, I mean we live together but in separate bedrooms," Leonard declared just to set the record straight.

"Oh, well I guess I'm your new neighbor, I'm Penny," she tells them.

"Hi, I'm Leonard," Leonard says pointing to himself. "This is Sheldon."

He points to Sheldon and he says, "Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi."

Leonard becomes awkward and thinks what to say next and finally says, "Uh, welcome to the building."

"Thank you, I'm so glad to be here, maybe we can have can have coffee sometime," Penny says pleasantly.

"Great," Leonard says.

"I drink tea," Sheldon tells her with a goofy grin.

"It's ok Sheldon, you don't have to drink coffee," Leonard comforts him.

"That's good, because I don't drink coffee."

Leonard smiles apologetically, "Ok, bye."

"Bye."

"Bye."

"Bye," Leonard says again as Penny slowly closed the door. Walking towards their apartment Leonard asked, "should we have invited her to lunch?"

"No," Sheldon says excitedly. "We're going to watch season 2 of Battlestar Galactica." He opens the door with his key.

"We've already watched season 2," Leonard reminds him.

"Not with commentary," Sheldon says as they walk into their apartment and he lifts his bag over his shoulder and puts it on his desk chair.

"I think we should invite her over and make her feel welcome," Leonard said with concern in his voice.

"We never invited Louis slash Louise over," Sheldon reminded him.

"And that was wrong of us, we need to widen our circle," Leonard offered.

"I have a very wide circle, I'll have you know I have 212 friends on Facebook," Sheldon apprised Leonard.

"Most whom you've never met," Leonard informed Sheldon.

"And that's what's so great about it," Sheldon told him.

"Well, I'm gonna go and invite her to lunch," Leonard said walking out the door. "We'll have a nice meal and chat."

Sheldon follows Leonard and says," but Leonard we don't chat. At least not offline."

"It's not difficult," Leonard says knocking on the door. "you just listen to what she has to say and you respond appropriately.

Penny opens the door and says, "hi."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi," Penny says again with a questioning smile.

Leonard lifts the bag still in his hand and says, "we brought home Indian food, and everybody knows that moving can be stressful and I find that when I'm under- going stress that good food and company can have a very calming effect. Also," Leonard continues, "curry is a natural laxative and I don't have to tell you that a clean colon is one less thing to worry about."

Penny cocks her head to the side with a knowing look on her face.

Sheldon leans toward Leonard and says, "I'm no expert on this subject as I am with many others, but I believe that in the context of a luncheon invitation you might want to skip the reference to bowel movements."

"Oh, he's not wrong," Penny said approving Leonard's statement.

Sheldon and Leonard stood stunned for a moment.

"Are you inviting me to eat?" Penny asked her face lighting up. "That's so nice."

"Yes."

"I'd love to," she said closing her door and walking toward their apartment. "So what do you guys do for fun around here?"

"Oh, this and that," Leonard said awkwardly.

"This and that?" Sheldon sounded mortified. "Leonard it's almost as if you don't live here at all." Then to Penny he said, "we go to the comic book store, we play video games, watch movies."

"But we do other stuff too," Leonard was contrite.

"No, all that sounds great!" Penny sounded excited as they walked into the apartment.

"Make yourself at home," Leonard said following Penny in with Sheldon right behind him.

"Okay, thank you," she smiled. It was then that she spotted the white board with the equations and geometric symbols. "Oh, wow –this looks like some heavy duty stuff, Leonard did you do this?"

"Actually," Sheldon said hurrying to his board. "That's my work."

"Wow," Penny repeated.

"Yes, well it's just some quantum mechanics, a little string theory and that down there," he pointed to the bottom of the board. "That's just a doodle."

"So, you're like one of those beautiful mind, genius guys?"

"Yeah," Sheldon smiled.

"I saw the movie. But I am impressed."

"I have a board, if you like boards this is my board," Leonard said trying to get some of the attention.

"Holy smokes!" Penny said going over to Leonard's board.

"If by holy smokes you mean a derivative restatement of the kind of dribble you can find scribbled in any mens room wall, sure," Sheldon came over trying to get the attention back.

"Oh no, this is impressive. All I have are movie posters," Penny said moving over to the couch and sitting on the end.

"I sit there," Sheldon said indignantly.

"Sit next to me," Penny said in an alluring voice.

"That's my spot," Sheldon clued Penny in. "No one sits in my spot."

"What difference does it make?" She asked.

"In the winter that seat is close enough to the radiator to remain warm, but not so close to perspire, in the summer this spot gets the best cross breeze created by opening windows there, there and there." Sheldon apprised her by pointing to different parts of the apartment.

"And faces the television," he continued. "that is neither direct, thus discouraging conversation, nor so far wide as to create a parallax distortion, I could go on, but I think I've made my point."

"Well, you're right, of course," she agreed. "But do you want me to move?"

"Well… "

"Just sit somewhere else," Leonard was irritated now.

"Fine," Sheldon smiled reluctantly and proceeded to look around the room for a suitable replacement seat, finally settling in on the other end of the couch.

All the while Penny was opening the containers and began to dish the food out on three plates, when Sheldon was settled in she asked, "so what do you guys do?"

"We work at the university," Leonard said taking one of the plates and a fork and began to eat.

"We're physicists," Sheldon said finding his voice and taking a plate for himself.

"Impressive," Penny said, her eyes were wide.

"This is nice," Leonard said not wanting the whole conversation to be about Sheldon and himself. He liked Penny and wanted to know more about her. "We don't get a lot of company."

"That's not true," Sheldon contradicted. "Why just the other night we had Koothrappali and Wolowitz over and we played Klingon Boggle till one in the morning."

"Oh, really? Maybe you'll let me join you the next time you play," Penny was practically jumping up and down on the couch. "I was the greater Omaha champ three years in a row."

Sheldon and Leonard sat stunned for a moment.

"So Penny," Leonard found his voice again. "What do you do?"

"I'm a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory."

"Oh, I love cheesecake," Leonard murmured.

"You're lactose intolerant," Sheldon interjected.

"I don't eat it," Leonard was annoyed. He wanted to know more about Penny but Sheldon kept interrupting. "I just think it's a good idea."

"But I want to be an actress," Penny added. "I want to play Princess Leia when they do the remake of Star Wars." Her face was all lit up.

Sheldon was stunned and asked, "they're doing a remake of Star Wars?"

And Leonard thought, _our children will be smart and beautiful._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Raj and Howard and Kurt

"So what were you guys planning for tonight?" Penny said putting some food in her mouth.

"We're going to watch the second season of Battlestar Galactica,' Sheldon was happy to inform her.

Leonard was embarrassed, "we've already seen it, so we'll probably do something else."

"Have you watched it with commentary?" Penny was practically shouting now. "You have to watch it with commentary. It's phenomenal."

Sheldon looked over at Leonard and gave him a knowing nod, "told ya."

At that moment the apartment door opened and Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali and Howard Wolowitz came in, "sorry we're late."

"I hope you didn't start without us," Raj said before he realized there was a pretty girl in the apartment.

Raj covered his mouth with his hand while Howard smiled and said, "bonjour ma chère, Howard Wolowitz, and you are?"

Penny giggled, "I'm Penny, I just moved in across the hall; that was French, right?"

"Yes, that was hello my dear in flawless French," Howard confirmed. "Will we be seeing a lot of you then?"

Leonard felt like he was losing Penny and tried to get her attention, "should we start the show?"

"Penny, will you be watching Battlestar with us tonight?" Howard asked as he and Raj filled their plates with the Indian food.

Penny realized that Raj hadn't said anything yet so she introduced herself to him, "hi, I'm Penny, and who are you?"

Raj looked away and Leonard said, "this is our friend Raj, he's a physicist too."

"Oh, wow," Penny said excitedly. "Howard are you a physicist too?"

"No," Sheldon sneered. "Howard is an engineer."

"I have a masters in engineering. I work at Cal Tech's department of applied physics. You may be familiar with some of my work, it's currently orbiting Jupiter's largest moon taking high resolution digital photographs." Howard stated proudly.

"Yes!" Penny squealed excitedly. "I just read an article about that. And the photos are out of this world." She giggled. "Get it? Out of this world."

"We all work at the university," Leonard reacted quickly. The conversation was going in a direction he wasn't comfortable with and wanted to get Penny's attention.

"Very cool."

"So? Are we gonna watch the show or what?" Howard asked taking a seat next to Penny.

Penny started to cry.

"Howard, what did you do?" Leonard asked grouchily.

"Nothing," Howard said defensively.

"I have no TV. I left it at my exes. He's a lying, cheating jerk, I just wanted to get out of there so I left without it," she sobbed.

"Well, we can go get it for you," Leonard said trying to be helpful.

"We?" Sheldon asked.

"Yeah, we can go get it," Leonard said to Sheldon. "It's neighborly."

"He's a big guy? Your ex?" Howard asked knowing he must be because she was so pretty.

"Yes, he's gorgeous," Penny cried. "I still love him, but I just couldn't stay with him. I took my movie posters and ran."

Raj handed Penny a bottle of water and put his arms around her, "you're so understanding, and a good listener. Why don't you talk? Can't you speak English?"

"Oh, he can," Howard said. "He just can't speak to pretty girls."

"Why not?"

"Because, he's kind of a nerd," Howard told her.

"Well, who's not?" Penny asked wiping her eyes.

"Well, okay," Leonard said turning the attention his way. "Sheldon and I are gonna go then."

"I'm going to need to change first," Sheldon said going into his bedroom to change.

They waited, wondering why he would have to change. But it was Sheldon so no one questioned it out loud. Sheldon went into his bedroom in his Friday Flash t-shirt and came out a couple of minutes later wearing an Avengers t-shirt. They were still staring at him.

"What?" he asked. "I just figured if I'm going to be the muscle I should wear the right clothes."

"What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?" Sheldon asked once they were in the car.

"What do you mean?" Leonard wanted to know.

"Penny is not going to have sex with you," Sheldon informed him.

"I'm not trying to have sex with her, and why wouldn't she have sex with me? I'm a man and she's a woman."

"Yes, but not of the same species," Sheldon pointed out.

"Sheldon, I'm not going to engage in hypotheticals, I'm just trying to be a good neighbor," Leonard told him. "That's not to say I wouldn't participate if a wanton relationship were to develop, however briefly."

"Do you think that having a bat signal on the table by your bed would help or hinder you having coitus with that girl?" Sheldon wanted to know.

Leonard thought about this – Penny was a very beautiful woman who had just broken up with a 'gorgeous man'. On the other hand she played Klingon Boggle and was the Omaha champ three years in a row.

"It may help," Leonard said slowly.

They were quiet again for a minute or two then Sheldon spoke again, "question – on what plain of existence is it rational to think that you and I can drive across town to retrieve a television set from her ex-boyfriend?"

"She was crying," Leonard countered.

"I ask again – why do you and I have to do this?"

"Again Sheldon, she was crying."

"I don't really think that's why you and I are going to salvage her TV from her ex," Sheldon responded.

"No? Why do you think you and I are going?" Leonard asked.

"You think with your penis."

"Biologically, that's impossible. And you didn't have to come," Leonard snapped.

"Oh, yeah I was just going to let you go alone with no back-up," Sheldon scorned. "And even if we do get past that man, how do you propose we pick up therTV?"

Leonard thought again, "TVs are flat now, they aren't as heavy as they used to be." Lenard offered. "And besides what makes you thinks it's a big TV? It might be a small one."

As they pulled up to the building Penny used to live at with her 'gorgeous' boyfriend Kurt, Leonard found he couldn't breathe so he pulled out his inhaler and took in a big gulp.

Sheldon noticed this and asked, "are you sure you're up to this? Because if you're not I'm totally okay with going back home right now."

"No," Leonard said to him. "We're here now… let's just do it."

They walked up to the door and knocked.

"This better be good," a wet nasally voice called from the other side of the door.

"Hi," Leonard tried to pitch his voice through the door. "I'm Leonard, this is Sheldon." He pointed to Sheldon.

"Hi," Sheldon said loudly.

"Yeah," the same wet voice shouted back. "Whaddaya want?"

"We are Penny's new neighbors and we came to get her TV," Leonard said bravely.

"Go away."

"Okay. Let's go," Sheldon said turning to go.

"Just wait, we didn't drive all the way across town just to turn around and go home," Leonard told him then to the door he said, "we came to get Penny's TV and we're not leaving till we get it."

There was some fumbling, then some giggling and the door opened. Sheldon and Leonard both stared at the gorgeous man Penny used to live with.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Waiting for Sheldon and Leonard

Penny dabbed her eyes with a tissue, Raj sat in the chair looking uncomfortable. Howard went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water.

"Would you like a glass, or did you want to drink right out of the bottle?" Howard asked.

Penny sniffed, "I'll just drink it out of the bottle." She took the bottle from Howard and unscrewed the top and took a long pull, drinking the entire balance of the bottle.

"Wow, you must have been thirsty," Howard remarked.

"I'm not really," Penny said wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "It's a game Kurt taught me. Usually I do it with beer, but water works too."

"Really? What do you call this game?" Howard inquired.

"Drink your beer in one swallow," Penny smiled remembering the good times she shared with Kurt. "Just one of the many things Kurt taught me."

"What else do you do?" Howard wanted to know.

"I collect movie posters of my favorite movies, I collect comic books and graphic novels, I love graphic novels," Penny squeaked.

Raj leaned over to Howard and whispered into Howard's ear.

"What?"

"He wants to know what kind of comic books you collect," Howard passed the question on.

"I love super heroes, the Avengers are probably my favorite. Thor… not just because he has the hammer, but you know… he's cute. Captain America, well he's Captain America. Ironman, Tony Stark rich man decides to use his gifts to benefit mankind, gotta love that and The Hulk, come on, he's big and green, what's not to love?" Penny spoke quickly and smiled. "I also like Superman comics and the movies."

"What about Black Widow?"

"Yeah, I want to be the Black Widow," Penny smiled a sly smile and her left eyebrow went up.

Howard and Raj sat looking at her, bafflement on their faces. Raj bent to Howard's ear and whispered another question to him.

"Raj wants to know what's wrong with Scarlett Johansson." Howard wanted to know too.

"Nothing, Scarlett is a fine actress… I just want to be part of the franchise," Penny told them. "I've read and have so many Avenger comics I can be the Black Widow."

Raj bent to Howard's ear again, Howard nodded his head and asked, "so have you gone on many auditions for movie or TV roles, and did you get any offers?"

"Well, once I drove all the way to Van Nays for an audition and it turned out to be porn," Penny said with a disappointed taste in her voice.

"Did you get it?" Howard asked with hope while Rag looked on with interest.

"No! Did you hear the part about it being porn?" Penny was now a bit irritated.

They were quiet for a while, then Penny let out a sigh and asked, "when do you think they'll be back?"

"Well, they have to go all the way to Sherman Oaks, which is about nineteen miles from here, say twenty to twenty five minutes to get there in normal traffic… figure in rush hour traffic… then figure in Sheldon and Leonard arguing about the trip… that's gonna be another fifteen minutes… give or take another fifteen to twenty minutes to get into the apartment… and that's if they actually get into the apartment," Howard was speaking very fast and Penny was glad she was a nerd and could keep up with him.

"Then it's another fifteen to thirty minutes to get your gorgeous hunk of an ex to agree to give them the TV… factor in another thirty to forty-five minutes for Sheldon and Leonard to get the TV out of the apartment and into the car… another fifteen minutes to catch their breath… fifteen more minutes for Sheldon to explain to Leonard what was wrong with the plan… " Howard paused to look at his watch.

"We're looking at another hour and a half to two hours," Howard smiled. "Neither of them would blame us if we started the movie without them."

Raj took the remote and pointed it at the TV and clicked it on.

"No, no we can't watch it without them," Penny was outraged. "That wouldn't be fair. They're coming back. Kurt will let them have the TV… I think."

"He's not… " Howard swallowed hard. "Psychotic. Is he?"

"Oh, he wouldn't hurt Sheldon… or Leonard," Penny said looking past Howard and Raj with a curious look on her face.

"Oh, we don't care if he hurts Sheldon," Howard grinned and Raj chuckled, immediately slapping a hand over his mouth.

"What do you mean?"

"Leonard is our friend, Sheldon just comes along for the ride," Howard informed.

"But Sheldon's a nice guy," Penny offered.

"Spoken like a woman who really doesn't know Sheldon," Howard said calmly.

They sat in silence till the movie started, then without speaking all three turned to the TV.


End file.
